Downers Grove

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT DOWNERS GROVE - PAGE 2

Crain's Chicago Business reports: Advocate Health Care, a 10 hospital system that includes Good Samaritan, Lutheran General and Christ Medical Center, is moving its headquarters to Downers Grove from Oak Brook this spring. Get the full story: chicagobusiness.com

With the 2010 Census about to kick off its door-to-door campaign May 1, towns like Downers Grove are making the task a little easier with high response rates. As of April 30, the last day forms can be mailed back, Downers Grove has posted an above-average census response rate of 82 percent, which is 10 points higher than the national average of 72 percent. The constitutionally-mandated process, which takes a head count of all Americans every 10 years, decides among other things how much federal money is allocated to state and local governments.

Thanks to this year's extreme weather, Downers Grove's public school officials might have to do some shuffling of schedules. "We haven't finalized our end-of-the-year calendar yet, but our eighth-grade promotion ceremonies will need to be pushed back to align with those changes," District 58 Spokeswoman Jennie Waldorf said. Both Community High School District 99 and Grade School District 58 officials canceled school for four days last month, opting to keeps student and staff home rather than brave dangerously low temperatures and hazardous road conditions.

In response to a string of recent incidents in which Downers Grove parks have been vandalized, the Park District and the Police Department have partnered to create a tipster reward program. A tipster can receive up $5,000 for reporting information leading to the arrest and conviction of someone damaging park property, in cases when damage is at least $2,500, officials said in a release. The initiative comes after Park District board members floated the idea during its July meeting.

Several people were appointed and reappointed to multi-year terms to 10 Downers Grove village boards and commissions. The village council unanimously approved nearly 30 appointments Sept. 17. Among the assignments, the council approved chairs for three commissions. Alice Strelau retained her position as chairwoman of the Liquor Commission until Sept. 2014, Anastasia Urban was appointed head of the Plan Commission until September 2015 and David Gorman assumes the chairmanship of the Stormwater and Flood Plain Commission until September 2014.

A Bolingbrook man died late Saturday night after he was hit by a car in west suburban Downers Grove, police said Sunday. Stephan Szela, 60, was crossing the street at the 4200 block of Main Street around 9:15 p.m. when a vehicle driving south in the right-hand lane struck him, Lt. Michael Willison said in a press release. Szela was transported to Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, about four blocks north of the crash scene, where he was pronounced dead, Willison said. The crash took place a block away from a major intersection with Ogden Avenue.

Downers Grove library officials have approved increases to the pay ranges of staff members and administrators for 2014. Trustees authorized a plan that will increase minimum and maximum pay by 3.5 percent for all positions. The board approved the raises in separate actions on Sept. 25 and on Oct. 23. The current salaries were set in 2012. "This is very consistent with what we talked about previously," Trustee Daniel Loftus said. For the five categories of clerical, technical and support positions, starting wages next year will range from $9.78 to $17.12 per hour.

After seeing about 8 inches of snow fall since New Year's Day, the Downers Grove Public Works Department is out in full force today, officials said. All 13 trucks and all available workers are on duty and have been running a 24-hour operation since Tuesday, said Stan Balicki, assistant director of operations. "We've got our hands full today," Balicki said. "We have a complete departmental response. " Downers Grove's snow clearing system involves first clearing the high-traffic, arterial roads, such as Main Street and Fairview Avenue, as well as Burlington Avenue in the heart of downtown.